Snowdrops everywhere

 

Whether the snowy weather we had earlier this month held them back, or the last week's mild tempteratures have brought them on, when I drove to Gloucester this morning I was staggered to see snowdrops everywhere.

There were clumps at the base of the walls, drifts of them in country churchyards and along the verges of both sides of the road. Some were clearly cultivated in gardens and others seem to have established themselves in huge quantity in woodland.

  

So clean and fresh, the best thing was that on the (different) way home, I saw just as many again.

Lovely.

Remember when?

Clearing out the old study in preparation for the transformation into a music room, I just came across this - do you remember how big and heavy digital cameras used to be?  This one travelled with us around China, where we filled eight floppy disks worth of pictures.  That's a whole 8mb!

I've had fun trawling through some of the old stuff in there.

Fresh air

A glorious day here today so we set off and headed a little way north and enjoyed lunch in a familiar old place which has had a facelift and is looking very lovely indeed.  Whilst in Chipping Campden we had another mission to accomplish - we finally decided on which new cutlery to buy and shopped locally for it.

This left us with no bun money* left for an additional purchase which we spotted on the way and which has appeared since we were last here. Never mind, we are happy where we are.

(*Paddington Bear fans will recognise the term)

After lunch, we headed for Bourton on the Hill, where we left the car and set off for a walk through the fields. 

Our walk took us in front of Sezincote, over several stiles and through some muddy gateways.  It's a surprising sort of country house, don't you think? 

We came across this sad abandoned sledge on the hill just beyond the house - the white spot in the distance is all that remains of the snow up here.

The views from up here were fantastic - looking over towards Oxfordshire.

We stopped to admire this newly laid hedge - such craftsmanship involved and at this time of the year, before the green shoots appear, the structure is clear to see.

Just before we arrived back at the car, we came across this tap, set in a stone wall with lettering above "Deo Gracias 1919"

Though looking at the mud we'd just waded through, I think that there was plenty of water there already, thank you!

Working

I've been working at home these last couple of days, planning and prepping a workshop I'm teaching later in the year, making mini books.  To warm up and get my brain and fingers into gear, I worked through Shimelle's quick project yesterday and was fairly pleased with the result.  As with any creative pursuit, it's often a slow start before ideas begin to flow and exciting things happen.

I often think that I should begin in the middle and work here and there rather than in a logical start-to-finish fashion.  Sometimes, I'm just getting going by the last page, on other occasions I run out of steam three quarters of the way through and the last pages are dull.  D  U   L   L   *

Today, I was making a simple tag book from luggage labels.  The group I'm going to work with are beginners and I've promised to cover as many techniques and ideas as I can manage - sixteen different pages as a kind of sampler, including using eyelets, brads, stickers, rub ons, ribbon, crystals, secret journalling, tags, rubber stamps and any other embellishment which happens to be lying around at the time!

The end result is fine and works well.  Phew.

It's been a fun week so far - I've had a visit from gorgeous girl Annabelle and spent a happy couple of hours helping her Mum, Lucy, to customise a few babygros.

Oh, and I've got a new toy to play with.  My next challenge is to do a bit of mobile blogging.

Could take time.

* that D U L L reference: we're going to the show on Sunday, taking m-i-l for her Christmas present. 

Found it

What did we do before we could google? Whilst shopping in Cirencester the other day, I was enjoying the music in NoaNoa and felt the need to track it down. Now that I have, I'll share. Looks like over a million people found it before me though - how come I didn't find it sooner?